PSA: Upgrade Your Under-Microwave Bulb

I recall a Blondie comic strip decades ago, where the punchline revolved around Dagwood falling prey to a door-to-door salesman, who convinced him to "stock up" on refrigerator lightbulbs, in order to get a big volume discount on a pack of a dozen. Being a youngster of perhaps 8 years, and having recently absorbed the concept of "volume discount" when shopping, I asked my Dad why that was, apparently, an idiot move on Dagwood's part. My father of course explained that refrigerator lightbulbs, only being in use for minutes per day, tend to last for years*. So Dagwood had just purchased a lifetime supply, and then some.

I myself have replaced a few refrigerator bulbs over the years, though I expect never to do it again, now that they have converted to LEDs. And on that note, microwaves. The typical suburban over-the-stove microwave includes a little 40W bulb, to shed light on the stovetop. Setting aside the silliness of measuring light in watts, 40W is really quite dim.

Until a week ago, I had never given the bulb or its replacement much thought, beyond mentally deploring its dimness. I can't recall ever having needed to replace one (just lucky timing, with moves and microwave replacements, I don't think we have ever had a microwave longer than 8 years). Until last week, when I finally experienced a burned-out microwave bulb.

I automatically went down the path of looking for a compatible LED. That wasn't hard, search yielded many 4W LEDs advertised as equivalent to a 40W incandescent. BUT--why settle for equally dim? Why not find a compatible form factor with higher lumens (brightness)? A little more searching turned up 7W equivalent replacement bulbs--so more like 70W. Still far from really good lighting, but a big step up from 40W dimness.

When they arrived, though, I immediately spotted accursed Murphy hovering in the vicinity: the new bulbs had the same base size, but they were about 1cm longer. Uh-oh. My initial attempt to fit it in was like a square peg in a round hole. While there would be (barely) enough clearance for the fully-screwed-in bulb, there was no room to maneuver to get it to the screwed-in state.

I really thought I was done for, but I persisted. And eventually managed a rare and surprising triumph over Murphy. What I discovered is that, like a semi backing into a seemingly impossible space, if I made just the right combination of moves, I could get it to fit. Those moves were:

• Turn the bulb sideways (perpendicular to the receptacle).
• Raise it all the way to the top of the enclosure--higher than the receptacle.
• Then rotate it 90 degrees, so base is lined up with receptacle.
• Finally, ease it into the receptacle, using every micron of space to get the first thread to take.

I have no idea if other microwaves will have this problem, nor if the solution will work with other microwaves. Just sharing in case it helps. The replacement bulbs are so cheap, it is worth trying just for the 75% increase in lumens.

Here is what I bought, for $13. Slight ironic coda: it's a two-pack.

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*We are talking the old, pre-LED, pre-CFL incandescent bulbs that generate lots of heat, and fail regularly, with typical usage lives of about 1000 hours. I suspect the cold operating temperature may have contributed to perception of long bulb life, in equal part as infrequent use.